In recent years, traditional broadcasting such as radio has evolved from analog distribution of media content to digital streaming of media content. For example, satellite radio allows distribution of media content over a large geographic area with high fidelity and rapid data transfer rates. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,094, to Boys et al., issued Jun. 11, 2001, and herein incorporated by reference, portable media players may be configured to receive broadcast media content over the internet as a digital data stream. This type of media player is sometimes referred to as internet radio receiver and may embodied in a wide range of portable computing devices such as laptops, personal data assistants (PDAs), cellular telephones, and like devices. While such technology enables users to access a wide range of media content as streamed digital data, it does not enable a plurality of users to collaboratively influence the media that is broadcast based upon real-time suggestions made by the media provider. Additionally, another limitation of the relevant art is that users are generally viewed as having equal privileges which may ignore important standing or stature among the collaborative group of users, for example registered subscribing listener versus anonymous listener.
Furthermore, while automated media selection systems enable individual users to express their long-term media preferences for consideration in media selection, such systems do not enable a group of users to collaboratively accept or reject media that is imminent to be broadcast played based the collaborative groups' current media desires. For example, a collaborative group's taste may over the long-term be determinative of what types of videos, music, genres of music, artists, actors, etc., that the collaborative group generally prefers to experience. However, the group's moment-to-moment media desires may vary widely based on contemporaneous influences which affect collaborative group's collective mood. The group's collective mood may often vary substantially during short durations of a typical day while the groups overall taste generally remain consistent over months or even years. For example, a group of users may collectively be partial to a particular song or video, rating it highly in a subjective measure of general preference, but at a given moment in time the group of users may collectively not be in the mood to experience the song or video.
Thus, automated and/or human-driven media distribution methods that rely solely upon a collaborative groups general long term tastes do not ensure that the collaborative group is receiving the broadcast media that is appropriate for the group's contemporaneous mood. Thus, there is a need for systems, methods, and computer program products, that enable collaborative groups of users to collaboratively influence broadcast media based upon their contemporaneous moods. Even more specifically, there is a need for systems, methods, and computer program products that enable individual users to express their moods and collaboratively accept or reject imminent media broadcasts that are suggested by a media provider.